The development of molecular and nano actinide decorporation agents

Internal contamination of actinides has led to significant health hazards to the public and workers in the context of nuclear power plant accidents, uranium ore mining, and reprocessing of the used fuel. An effective sequestering agent that is able to remove accidentally incorporated actinides in vivo with low toxicity is always in urgent need. The molecular decorporation ligands have been the most widely researched agents for the past few decades, while preliminary studies of functionalized nanoparticles have shown their clear advantages in metal binding selectivity, toxicity, and oxidative stress alleviation. Herein, the state-of-the-art of those two types of decorporation agents is presented with special attention being paid on the correlation between the solution and solid-state chemistry of those agents with actinides and the corresponding decorporation efficacies. (C) 2022 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Chinese Chemical Society and Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

Automated summary

This paper presents the latest research progress on decorporation agents for actinides, with a focus on molecular decorporation ligands and functionalized nanoparticles for removing internal contamination of actinides. The correlation between the solution and solid-state chemistry of these agents with actinides and their decorporation efficacies is emphasized.